


the second best

by firstaudrina



Series: the best you ever had [2]
Category: Gossip Girl
Genre: Addiction, Breathplay, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, M/M, verrrrry light tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-13 22:56:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11770155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstaudrina/pseuds/firstaudrina
Summary: Carter scratches at the door like a stray cat. He has not been in New York in almost a year. He came here straight off the plane, used all the crushed up spare dollars and cents left in his wallet and still managed to stiff the cabbie a whole fiver. "Danny boy," he calls, nails scraping against the battered wood of the door. "Dan."Carter leaves, but he always comes back.





	the second best

**Author's Note:**

> It took me a long time, but I finally got here. Sequel to ['the best you ever had'](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3857470), which I do think it's necessary to read before this.

Carter scratches at the door like a stray cat. He has not been in New York in almost a year. He came here straight off the plane, used all the crushed up spare dollars and cents left in his wallet and still managed to stiff the cabbie a whole fiver. "Danny boy," he calls, nails scraping against the battered wood of the door. " _Dan_."

The door suddenly jerks open under him and Carter sways, cocky grin alighting on his face before he's altogether straightened up. But he gets barely a glimpse of Dan's harried face, his clenched jaw, before the door is slamming shut. Carter splutters. Then it opens again and a hand fists in Carter's shirt, drags him inside and into a hard kiss.

"Where," Dan says, muffled, "the fuck," broken up by kisses that seem to sting, " _were you?_ "

Carter had sent Dan a postcard from Sardinia, but that was eight months ago. Where hasn't he been? Corsica, Sicily, Provence. Rome. Milan, Munich, Luxembourg, Brussels. London. Paris. Barcelona. Algiers. Carter never stays anywhere for too long.

"Missed me?" he says with attendant asshole charisma. Dan shoves him hard, so hard Carter knocks back painfully against the door handle. He looks up and meets Dan's eyes straight on for the first time: Dan is tense and furious, all jawline and cheekbones and even a vein standing out a little on his forehead. Heat flares sweet and dirty in Carter's chest, fear and nerves and excitement. "Honey –"

"I didn't know if you were fucking _dead_ until I got a _fucking postcard_ from _fucking Sardinia_."

Carter winces. "Dan –"

"And do you know what it said?" Dan continues, staring at him. " _Wish you were here_."

No apologies to be found in that limiting little postcard square. 

Carter puts his hand on Dan's stomach – daring, low, intimate. "Come on now, honey," he says, like Dan is the irrational one. He looks so angry that Carter thinks for a moment Dan might actually hit him (and wouldn't _that_ be interesting), but instead Dan's mouth finds his again, rough and hot and hard. Carter puts his hands on Dan's face, really holds him there, cups Dan's jaw in his palms and sinks into the kiss.

Carter always likes seeing people again after a long time away. It has all the confusing pleasure of déjà vu, relearning all the little quirks of their faces. There is the beauty mark under Dan's right eye. The hair cropped so close now there isn't a single curl. And this, the angry way Dan's mouth works against his, déjà vu but better. Something Carter had forgotten and yet knows as intimately as breathing. Dan's mouth on his. 

They careen into the wall, Carter bracing himself with an arm above Dan's head. He doesn't have much attention to spare for how the apartment has changed since he was last here, but some things are impossible not to notice. Into Dan's mouth, he gasps, "You painted."

"Uh-huh." The walls are blue now, deep and clear like water, a haze of color every time Carter's eyes open before desire drags them shut again. Dan stands out against the color (dark hair, white shirt) but Carter would prefer him in red. "Serena came over with it one day. Said it would cheer me up."

"Oh, honey." Carter says it with mocking sweetness, though he feels a twinge somewhere beneath his sternum. He cups Dan through his jeans. "Just wasting away without me, huh?"

Dan jerks Carter's jacket off his shoulders and it lands in a leathery heap on the floor. His hands are a little cold slipping under Carter's pullover. "Fuck off."

Carter presses close instead. He can't keep his teeth off Dan's skin, wants to mark him up, wants to make it hurt. The good kind, mostly. Dan has the same idea, no tenderness in his touches, hustling Carter around, knocking him into walls and picture frames. Carter can feel the intent to bruise in Dan's fingertips, and he wants to be bruised.

He gives Dan a spin so his cheek is pressed against the deep blue wall and then hauls his white t-shirt up enough to mouth down the length of his spine. Carter tugs Dan's sweats down a little so he can sink his teeth into the curve of Dan's ass – not that there's much of one to speak of. "Skinny bitch," Carter says fondly. 

Dan snorts. "You gonna do anything while you're down there?"

"Let's see if I can figure it out." 

He wants everything at once, which is at least a little bit the coke talking but mostly it's Dan, the familiar taste and smell of him that Carter has gone without for so many months. He wants Dan to lay him out on the bed and fuck him. He wants to stay here on his knees until he makes Dan melt down the wall. He wants to tease Dan for hours, keep him right on the edge; wants to get him off right now, messy and abrupt half a foot from the door.

He's easing Dan's briefs off when it occurs to him to say, "Are you seeing anyone?"

Dan gives him a sideways look over his shoulder, mostly obscured yet still clearly incredulous. "Would you care?"

Carter thinks about that as his hands coast up the back of Dan's thighs, his ass. He rubs his thumb over Dan's asshole and then nudges in close with his tongue, keeps going until he hears Dan's forehead thunk against the wall. He gets his thumb in Dan to the first knuckle even though this isn't necessarily the nicest way to do it, not that slow and tender opening up of times past. But Dan is making that sound he makes when Carter fucks him really good, and it aches a little in Carter's chest to hear it.

Of course he'd _care_. Not about Dan cheating on someone, obviously, but Dan _being_ with someone – of course he'd care about that.

"I'm not," Dan says suddenly, all grainy. "Seeing anyone." Carter pulls back so he can get a look at Dan, then turns him with gentle fingers on Dan's hipbones. "Are you?"

Dan's eyes are half-closed and he looks a little dazed, but there's an alertness to him too, a challenge. It's that stupid déjà vu thing again, all these little punches to the chest. All these things Carter had missed. 

Carter prefers being funny over having emotions but he's finding it hard to be funny right now. If he can't be funny and he can't be honest, all he has left is sex. And it's an easy option to choose, to kiss Dan's stomach and lick at his half-hard dick, always a little bit of a surprise on a guy as thin as him. Sex is a good option, so of course Carter chooses it instead.

It's stabilizing, in a fucked up way: sucking dick. It's one of the few things in the overlapping Venn diagram of Things Carter Is Good At and Things Carter Likes To Do, along with being an asshole and snorting cocaine. Making Dan splinter apart makes Carter feel more in control, enough to finally answer, "I've practically been a priest."

"I'll bet," Dan breathes. His hand curves around the back of Carter's neck, so gentle, and rubs up through Carter's hair.

Maybe it wasn't the most convincing statement to say mid-blowjob, but true, or true enough. It's impossible to account for every place he'd put his dick in the last few months, when another him was behind the steering wheel. But wherever it counts – heart, brain, whatever – he'd been faithful. 

Carter can imagine Dan's reaction if he tried to sell him _that_.

He puts his lips on the knobby bone of Dan's hip. "So, now that we've established _you're_ single and _I'm_ single, what are we possibly going to do to pass the time?"

They end up in the leather armchair in the living room. It sits in a new spot, by the record player instead of by the windows, but it's still the same chair Carter has pushed Dan into to perform lewd acts about a million times before. It's the same chair Dan would sprawl in to read. It's the same chair Carter had his breakfast in many a morning. It's just in a different place. 

Carter likes it like this: Dan's back against his chest, the full weight of Dan's body on his, the way Dan reaches back to hold onto Carter any way he can. Dan's hand gripping the leather arm of the chair. Carter's still just using his fingers because Dan had said, embarrassment in his face and his voice, "It's…uh, it's been a while. Go slow?"

Carter honestly wouldn't have cared if Dan had fucked every last person in New York City, but the idea that maybe Dan had been holding out, waiting, hurts in an inexplicable way. It's a confusing feeling. He wanted to come back like nothing had changed but at the same time he didn't want Dan unhappy, wishing for something he was never going to get.

It's kind of patronizing, but that's just about the least of Carter's sins.

"That's good, I'm good," Dan murmurs, head tipped back and mouth just barely kissing Carter's ear. Dan reaches down to guide him but Carter pauses, tensing.

"We should use something."

Dan twists a little to look at Carter, his eyebrow raised. "I thought you were a priest."

Carter smiles, self-effacing. "Some kind of priest."

Dan rolls his eyes a little but gets up to get the condoms. "I haven't exactly been celibate either."

And _that_ feeling, that must be envy or jealousy, which makes even less sense than wishing Dan Did the Five Boroughs. 

They had been monogamous the last three months they were together before Carter left – no extras, no thirds, nothing. Carter has not been careful in the interim. He never is when he's fucked up.

Dan gives him that head-tilted curious puppy look before putting himself back in Carter's lap, thighs spread accommodatingly, melting back into him like it's all so easy and simple. "Don't look so fucking moody," Dan says, light. "I have it on pretty good authority you're about to get laid."

Carter nudges Dan up a little so he can press into him, be enveloped by him, slow and good and too, too familiar. Carter leans his forehead against Dan's shoulder blade, rubs his face against Dan's skin. Dan makes a low resonant sound almost like a hum. 

"How do you want it?" 

"Fuck me like you haven't seen me in a year," Dan tells him, dry and sarcastic. Dan is good at finding just the right way to twist the knife with his words, but Carter has never been opposed to a little knifeplay. He knows how to get under Dan's skin too, so he does as he's told: fucks Dan like he hasn't seen him in a year, which he hasn't.

He rubs his hands over Dan's body, getting a feel for him all over again – heavy strokes over Dan's arms and chest and sides, his thighs which Carter urges farther apart as he fucks up into Dan slow, slow, slow. He presses his face into Dan's back, pushes and presses and leans and nudges until he's got Dan bent near double in his lap, manipulating Dan on his dick more than anything else, handling him. And the whole time he says the things he knows Dan wants to hear, and hates that he wants to hear. 

"I know you like that, sweetheart," Carter says. "I know you'd like it better if I took you to bed. Has anyone, since me? Did you pick up some prettyboy hipster in a Brooklyn bar and let him lay you out flat on your back? Did you find some enterprising young woman who'd strap one on for you? Or did you just go back to pretending you didn't need it? That's how you were when I found you. So desperate for it you'd even roll over for me. Then once I gave it to you, you couldn't stop. Wanted it all the time, wanted me to fill you up, give it to you so hard you saw stars. Wasn't that the way, sweetheart?"

Dan's got his eyes closed and his brow knit, jaw clenching just a little. He scrabbles for a grip on the arms of the chair, on Carter's arms. "Don't call me that." It comes out half-strangled, huffy and low.

"Why not? It's what you are." Carter kisses beneath the bony protrusion of Dan's shoulder blade and then drags his teeth dully over Dan's spine. "It's what you want to be. Anybody's sweetheart, even mine. You're so busy looking at everyone else, you just want somebody to look at you. Well, here I am, my love, back from the grave."

Dan's laugh is rough, disbelieving. "Jesus Christ. Where do you get this shit from?"

"From the heart, babe," Carter teases, and Dan laughs again. There are still some things Carter can do, like this: drop back into the chair, slouch down, pull Dan against him, slide his hand between Dan's legs. It gets a nice long groan in response, a pretty flutter of eyelashes. "You ready?"

"Not yet." Dan shakes his head. "Little more."

"Mmm." Carter considers this. Nice as it is to have Dan sprawled all over him, the angle is shitty; Dan's wriggling around on him, working his hips, thrusting into Carter's hands but he's not totally hard. It happens. Doesn't mean anything except that it'll take longer. It _has_ been a while. "Sit up. Turn around."

He can feel Dan hesitate for half a second but then he's up, standing there all flushed for a moment before climbing back into Carter's lap. Face to face. "No funny business," Dan warns him in a murmur with just enough silliness in it to make Carter grin.

"Scout's honor," he promises, hands on Dan's waist. He fishes for another joke but comes up empty, leaning up as Dan sinks onto him again, forehead against Dan's mouth and then cheek against Dan's cheek. The easy drape of Dan's arms around his neck is sweetly familiar, and Carter presses his face into Dan's collarbone seeking more of that feeling, familiar skin carrying a familiar scent, Dan's cologne worn down after a long day so now it's just a haze mixing in with sweat and sleep and sex.

Carter mouths at Dan's skin and wraps his hand around Dan's dick, leans and leans into him. They don't really kiss but there isn't a moment that they aren't pressed close in some other intimate way, noses knocking, forehead to forehead, sharing breath and dragging rough stubble against rough stubble. Dan's hands are tight in Carter's hair, long now and easy to grab. He comes all over Carter's fingers with a startled shudder, holding Carter tight in his arms.

Carter doesn't really care about coming, honestly. He's a little edgy and unfocused and he'd rather just lay under Dan, just breath him in, but there's something to be said for Dan straightening up out of his boneless slump and riding Carter for all he's worth. There is definitely something in that. 

Dan gets up pretty quick after, stepping into and tugging up his sweats before making his way out of the room, presumably to the bathroom. Carter mellows pleasantly on the chair while he looks around, taking note of all the things that have changed. Not too much. Just enough that he registers a wrongness here or there, a sense of life moving on without him there to see it happen. 

"Where's my girl, huh?" Carter drums his fingers on the leather and makes a soft purring noise. "Where's my Sylvia? Sylvie girl, come on, come on out."

After a moment, a small white face peeks out from beneath the couch, and then the cat darts out, jumping onto Carter's chest with sharp claws. He laughs. 

"You're indecent, Sylvia," he says. "Creeping the whole time. A real sicko."

Dan reappears in the doorway, but before Carter can crack a joke about how Sylvia is a pervert (a recurring joke between them, once), Dan says, "You're still here?"

Carter blinks. "Yeah I'm still here. Where else am I supposed to be?"

Dan's eyebrows climb towards his hairline. "Anywhere else works for me." 

Carter hadn't anticipated being welcomed with open arms, but he figured showing up in the middle of the night would at least land him a place to stay until morning. 

"I don't really care where you go," Dan says. "But you can't stay here."

Carter inches forward in his seat so he can reach for his jeans, relocating Sylvia to the rug. "Aw, c'mon, handsome. I can sleep on the couch."

"No, you can't," Dan says bluntly. "You don't live here anymore."

Carter ends up hustled out into the hallway with his bag slung over one bare shoulder, his boots clutched in his arms, and his jeans slipping unzipped down his hips. The door slams behind him without so much as a goodbye kiss. 

Carter sighs. He thinks of his taxi ride here. Then he asks, "Can I borrow your Metrocard?"

Silence is followed by scuffling and a little yellow card pops out of the gap between the door and floor. Footsteps retreat. Carter smiles. 

 

 

 

Serena laughs when she opens the door. When Carter tries to hug her, she gives him a playful shove that nevertheless has a thread of something vicious in it. "Asshole."

"That's my name," Carter says. "Don't wear it out."

She shakes her head, smiling, but lets him in anyway, because if Carter has any friend in this big crazy world, it's Serena. Other people can be fucks or foes but Serena – she's his other half, Plato-style, or maybe his reflection. All their scars match up. But she's better than him too, always has been; Serena possesses a deep well of goodness that Carter can only laugh at helplessly and fail to emulate. 

She's wearing a little cotton tank top and shorts, just miles of tanned limb in every direction. She curls into a corner of the couch, leaving the rest for him, and gives him a look like she knows he's up to no good but she wants to see how things shake out anyway. That look has gotten them both into some trouble throughout the years. 

"Dan kicked me out." Carter drops his bag and jacket and boots before taking his place next to her. "I mean, rightfully so."

"I'm jealous," she teases. "You don't come to me first anymore." 

Carter smiles. "Since when does being first matter?"

"Since _always_ ," Serena intones wisely. "Does kicked you _out_ mean he actually let you in?"

"There's a dirty joke in there that I just can't re–"

She cuts him off with a laughing groan. " _Really?_ God, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but I always thought he'd stay strong."

"He didn't let me stay, that's pretty good. As for the sex, can you blame a guy?"

"Yeah, I can blame _this_ guy," she says, giving him a push with her foot. "Carter, you can't just _show up_ after a million months and pull that kind of thing, _especially_ with Dan and _especially_ after what you did to him." Her obliging attitude gives way to reproach, though the relaxed lines of her body remain the same. "He was in a really bad place after you left."

Carter smiles wanly. "Yeah, so was I."

She softens because she's Serena so Carter reaches over to swoop her into his lap. She lets out a surprised shriek of laughter. "Don't you start that with me, Baizen."

But she settles, facing him with her legs on either side of his hips, and loops her arms casually around his neck. He thinks of Dan.

"Couldn't take advantage even if I wanted to, beautiful," he says with exaggerated regret. "Your boy wrung me out."

"Yours, lately," she says, amused and delightfully immune to him. "And hmm, even _if_ you wanted to…"

Carter smiles again, but each consecutive grin feels more and more exhausting, his muscles unwilling to stretch into the rictus. He should have done another bump on the way over, but he was trying to conserve until he could get some money. "All I meant is I'm too tired."

"Uh-huh," she says doubtfully, but the look on her face is straight-up pity. "You missed him a lot, didn't you?" When he doesn't respond, she adds, "He missed you too." 

"That's not how he made it sound."

"Well." She shrugs. "You know Dan." 

"Do I?"

They look at each other impassively for a moment. Carter knows one side of Dan, that's true, but she knows another, deeper and with more history, all the blanks filled in. For Carter, Dan still drifts off in ellipses and incomplete sentences. 

"I'm not saying he hasn't dated anyone at all," she says finally. "But if you want to know if the torch was burning, then yeah, I think it was. That's just how Dan is."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She smiles before sliding off him, though she leaves her legs in his lap. "Dan likes to be in love, especially if the object of his affection is missing in action." She chews on her lower lip a moment. "Sometimes I think for Dan it's more about the wanting than the getting. Like, that's more pure or something. For him."

Carter's little knight errant. He wonders if Dan would have mooned over anyone he'd fucked for a couple of months.

"Doesn't that make a guy feel special. What does that make me, last served?"

"Carter." Serena gives him another little shove. "You know that's not what I meant. Dan loves you."

Carter twitches and then reaches for the joint in his pocket, lighter following. "Not sure I deserve the honor."

"Of course you don't," she says, but with a little smile. "Don't freak out."

"Who's freaking out?"

"He never said it to me, personally. I'm just, you know, using my eyes and ears and brain to put together all the clues. It's not that surprising; it's hard to forget a first."

"Dan was hardly a blushing virgin when we got together."

"He kind of was," she muses, looking at him with her cool blue eyes. "You and I have that in common, with Dan."

Carter feels another of those nostalgia pangs.

That first time. That very first time, Carter had liked how Dan already looked _fucked_. His hair had been all flat at the back, like his head had been thrown against the pillow while Serena rode him, and he was so pale in the early light that scratches stood out sharp pink on his skin. He'd already looked like someone had worn him out. It made Carter want him bad. 

"No, he wasn't," Carter says. "And that's what I liked."

 

 

 

Carter has brunch with his sister Caroline the next morning. 

She’s a good one, his sister, and not just because her only point of comparison is Carter. She got good grades all through high school, did Model U.N., played the cello, went to Wharton, Yale Law, and now she’s at Daddy’s old firm. Plus there’s the prettyboy husband and even an adorable baby she manages to raise without a nanny. She might as well have the words Perfect Daughter stamped on her forehead, and the worst part is Carter doesn't even resent her for it. He knows he must've had a hand in her creation just by setting the wrong example so many times that it gave her an alternate blueprint to follow. 

Her baby is gurgling happily in the stroller next to the table where she waits for Carter.

“You’re late,” she says.

“Hungover,” he tells her, leaning to kiss her cheek. He shakes his keys in front of the baby. “Hey there, caterpillar.”

The baby makes some noises. It's a girl, Carly. The name thing is very cutesy. 

"What happened to rehab?"

"I'm sure it's still standing," Carter replies before somewhat pointedly picking up his menu, putting an end to _that_ conversation. It's not like they really need to have it again. How many times does it have to happen before people realize he's just not getting it?

Caroline sighs. Her hair is blonde now, wisps of it drifting down from a casual ponytail to curl around her face. "I guess you haven't been to see Dad yet?"

"I just got back yesterday." Carter drums his fingers on the tabletop and looks around for the waitress, his back already up. "And anyway, I'm probably not going to."

Caroline stares at him. "You're not going to see Dad?"

"I'm not here for him, Carolina." His tone is light, silly, but he's serious. "I came back to see about a guy, another thing Dad can add to my long list of failings, and I'm sure he doesn't have any interest in hearing about _that_."

"Still, Carter," she says. "You should see him."

"Did he come to see me?" Carter wonders. "I mean, maybe I was unconscious and missed it, but…" 

Caroline looks down at her plate. He was late enough that she ordered without him; the uneaten remnants of what was once poached eggs on polenta stare back at her. Carter assumes he's up for a big speech about forgiveness and trying, etcetera, etcetera, but Caroline only says, "No. He didn't."

If the shining example of familial perfection can't stand up for the old man, then who can?

 

 

 

Serena brings Carter to the bar that Friday even though she hems and haws over the appropriateness of it. Carter gave up hiding his drugs from Serena long ago, so he just gives her a flat look and says, "Beautiful, my bloodstream is ninety percent pharmaceuticals right now, I can stand to sit next to a couple of cocktails." 

So she relents. 

They go to Osa, a bar in Midtown with a bear sketched out in constellation on the sign. Osa is a gang favorite, the only bar that's relaxed enough for Dan but classy enough that Blair will deign to drink there, all dark wood paneling and smoky amber bottles behind the bar. Midtown because Dan refuses to go all the way uptown but Blair won't set foot below 23rd. Nate and Serena are easy, they'd go anywhere, but Dan and Blair were always trouble. 

Carter lurks by the bar while Serena entertains Blair and Nate and Nate's new girl, a peach of a redhead covered in freckles. Dan is late. Dan might not be coming at all if he suspects Carter is there, because he hasn't been answering any of Carter's tragically desperate calls or texts. 

He feels jittery again, like he doesn't know which way is up, and he has the edginess of vulnerability, waiting to get stomped on and even wanting it a little. Deserving it. 

Carter's still skint, so he flirts a shot of vodka out of the girl behind the bar and swallows a pill with it in the hopes of chilling out. Money is another thing. Maybe he _should_ go see his father. 

Back when he and Dan were still playing house, Carter was working at a hip little gay bar; recovering addict walks into a bar, the jokes really write themselves. But he was good at it because it was easy work that played to his particular strengths and his tips were so excessive (wasn't he handsome, wasn't he charming, didn't you just want to give him everything you had in your wallet?) that after his first week they spread all the money out on the bed and fucked on it: Dan's head thrown back against the green, bills crumpling under Carter's hands. Both of them were cracking up about how stupid it was but at the same time Dan's relief was palpable. Carter was the reason they were able to get the nicer place. Carter was the reason Dan could quit his shitty office job to focus on his writing again. 

Carter doesn't know how he misses it, but in between one wink at the bartender and a glance back at Serena, Dan has found his way to the rest of the crew. He's sitting there very quietly, smiling when someone talks to him but otherwise held in reserve. He isn't sitting with Blair, Carter notices. 

Serena sees him looking and waves to get his attention, mouthing _drinks_ at him. Carter nods and salutes her, then sets up a tab in her name. 

They sit on opposite sides of the group, but later, while everyone is talking, Dan looks at him. Carter pretends not to notice. 

"You're not sober," Dan says. It's not a question.

Carter brings his tequila to his lips but doesn't lift his gaze to meet Dan's. "Are you surprised?"

"Do you want me to be?"

He swallows. "Be whatever you are, honey. No skin off mine."

He can still feel Dan's eyes on him but after a moment Dan's attention shifts away. Carter breathes, but he's not sure if it's with relief or disappointment. 

Over the course of the night, Carter drinks and half-listens to the conversation buzzing around him and vibrates gently, delicately, out of his skin. He learns things. Serena is dating an actor who isn't good enough for her. Nate's girlfriend is named Shauna and they met doing charity work, two too-attractive people looking for a way to waste their time and money without feeling shitty about themselves. Blair is still single. Fancy that.

When it's Dan's turn to get the next round, Carter follows him, ignoring the looks traded between the rest of the group. He steps up close, hand low on Dan's back.

"Here to lend a hand?" Dan wonders. "If I make you hold a drink, I'm afraid you'll just take it for yourself."

"A real danger," Carter agrees. "Handsome, you ever going to return my calls?"

Dan makes a low sound like a laugh, shaking his head. He turns towards Carter and leans on the bar, surveying him with amused, suspicious eyes. "Can I ask you something? Why are you so obsessed with me all of a sudden? It's been a long time, Carter. You made it pretty clear that you didn't want to be with me. I got over it. So what's the deal? Why now?"

Carter's brain is a loop of addiction: pills, booze, coke, Dan. Round and round on itself like a Ferris wheel. "I know I made a mistake."

Dan scoffs at that before collecting the drinks from the bartender, shoving a few Carter's way. "You _are_ a mistake."

Carter won't argue with that. It's still a mistake he wants Dan to make again, again, again. 

After that Dan gets a little careless, bright-eyed and wet-mouthed with his new neat hair and tense shoulders. Buzzed, his smiles come quicker and his jokes are sharper. Carter catches Dan looking at him out of the corner of his eye more than once. When the night is winding down, everyone ready to go their separate ways, Dan presses his knee against Carter's.

"I'm going to stay a little longer," Carter tells Serena, flashing her his own five-tequila grin.

"I'll bet," she says wryly. "Please be good."

"But beautiful," he says, "It's much more fun to be bad."

She gives him a doubtful look and shakes her head a little, but departs with a kiss to both of Carter's cheeks and a ruffle of Dan's hair. They're alone before long (Blair was the first to leave, Nate the last), sitting side by side as awkward as if it were a first date. 

"Dan," Carter starts, finally, but before he can say another word Dan touches his jaw, tilts his face close. 

"This doesn't mean I'm taking you back," Dan says, as sternly as he can manage, and then he kisses Carter, no hesitation. It's instant relief like taking a shot, taking a hit; everything stills, even the manic hum of Carter's skin. A Ferris wheel of addictions.

"Mixed messages," Carter says. 

Dan disagrees, hand coming up to rest lightly on Carter's throat. His thumb presses ever so slightly into the soft spot below Carter's Adam's apple. "I think things are pretty clear. You can visit but you can't stay."

Dan talks a good game, always has, but there's the same restrained neediness in him that Carter recognizes in himself. It's there in the impatience of Dan's kiss, the slightest tremble in his jaw. He wants this as badly as Carter wants it, he just has more effective bullshit detectors and a steelier spine. It's funny how desire blows a hole right through your self-preservation.

"Take me home." The words are dangerous ground, but Carter says them anyway. "I'll make it worth your while."

They really were apart a long time. Almost as long as they were together. 

They get on the train home even though it's sardined with that dull-eyed, dull-skinned mumblecore crowd and more frat douches than Carter is interested in entertaining on a Friday well after midnight. But it's New York, so no one looks askance as Carter and Dan make out against one of the poles, even though they're quite rudely taking up some valuable train real estate. Kissing fucked up on the train feels a little like a rollercoaster, a jolt of feeling hooked low in Carter's stomach with every stop and start.

A girl who gets on at the Bedford stop gives them some serious stink eye when she's left without a handhold and forced to plant her weight or go flying with the starting jerk of the train; Carter can't resist being an extra asshole about it. He pulls back enough to point at Dan and say to her, "Famous writer, did you know, honey? Ever read _Inside_?" 

Dan shakes his head but laughs quiet and breathy against Carter's neck, which was all he wanted, really.

"Aw, see, you still think I'm funny," Carter says, grinning. 

"That was a pity laugh." Dan's mouth is all kissed, red and open. "Don't let it go to your head."

"Where else's it gonna go?" Carter wonders in a soft murmur, and kisses Dan again as the turn of the train presses them tighter together.

The apartment isn't too far from the stop, the second floor in a dated but decently maintained townhouse. It was overpriced and there wasn't a lot of space but they hadn't needed a lot. The floors were gritty and stained but they were wood; the rooms were small but there were good windows that let in a lot of light. There was even whitewashed brick inside, Dan's favorite. It wasn't ideal but that sort of made it ideal anyway, in that way of holing up with someone you love at the moment you love them the most. Carter remembers teasing Dan about being a housewife, having dinner ready by six and making sure to finish the dusting.

Carter is surprised Dan stayed, honestly. "How'd you manage it?" he wonders as they make their way upstairs. "The rent?"

Offhandedly, Dan says, "I borrowed some money from Blair."

Carter blinks, internally rebelling at that. It must read on his face, because Dan adds, "What was I going to do, get a roommate? It's a one bedroom."

"You could've left," Carter says.

Dan shrugs. "I like it here."

It pings Carter's heartstrings in a stupid way so he shuffles up to kiss the back of Dan's neck like he used to, like he likes to. He had missed the smell of Dan's expensive cologne, his cheap shampoo. He missed the feeling of Dan's body against him and under his hands. It was easy, when Carter was away, to get nostalgic for Dan's sarcasm and huffiness, his mean jokes and soft heart, but physicality was something else. Carter couldn't remind himself of the exact sensation of Dan's skin under his mouth the way he could remember a particularly good line. Now all of it's driving him crazy. 

They get into the bedroom, which Carter had not seen during his first return home. It's much the same: off-white walls, unmade bed, dresser stacked with books. Carter wishes he was the sort of person who could appreciate such hominess. 

"Hey Dan, Danny." Carter is still close behind Dan, hands slipping up under the front of his shirt. "Would you… You think you could, uh." He's not one to be shy but it still feels strange, the gap between them. "Will you fuck me?"

Dan's expression is curious as he turns and gives Carter a little push back onto the bed. He shakes his head, a casual refusal, and then folds to his knees, hands on Carter's belt buckle. Carter doesn't want to read into that so he doesn't let himself. 

Carter has come to appreciate the way Dan sucks dick. It's studied, almost academic; a scholarly interest in learning how to do something well, but removed at the same time. There's a distance there, a lack of emotional investment. Dan will do it to return the favor, because it's polite, because he wants to mentally even if he doesn't get as much out of it. There's a disconnect for him. It doesn't turn him on. The bizarre appeal of Dan's lackluster blowjobs.

Dan's hair is too short now, slipping through Carter's fingers, and Carter's is too long, scraped back into a little tuft at the back of his head, but otherwise it could be any night back home from the bar. Too tired or drunk to fuck but too keyed up not to mess around a little, hands and mouths and surprising orgasms, falling asleep on each other and regretting it the next morning that neither had taken a shower. It could be so easy to get comfortable here again, but Carter is, per Dan's own instruction, only visiting. 

Anger twists through Carter. One hand tightens on the back of Dan's neck and the other wraps around his jaw, pressing in at its hinges to get Dan's mouth open. Dan pulls off, turns his head a little, and bites Carter's hand. Playful, but not. Like Carter. Tender but angry. 

"Please tell me we still know how to fuck," Carter says. "Because if that goes to shit too I'm not sure what's left."

The sparest of smiles graces Dan's upturned face. "We'd probably have to talk about how we feel."

"Can't have that," Carter says. "You oughta get better at that real fast, then."

Dan snorts. "Asshole," he says without rancor, mouth on Carter again almost before he finishes speaking. The parting of his lips, the hollowing of already hollow cheeks: he does it all to aesthetic perfection. He has a hand curled around Carter's cock, veins standing out in his skin that Carter can't help but trace with a light finger. The touch startles Dan, his throat working suddenly, and Carter comes just like that. Dan spits into the wastepaper basket tucked under the night table. "Warn a guy," he says.

Carter had forgotten; they always used to do it like this. "Noted."

He hauls Dan up bodily, pushes him onto the bed and slides down right away. Carter mouths Dan's dick through denim, tugs down his zipper with teeth. Carter does not share Dan's disinterest in sucking dick. He always got a thrill from it, filthy, the same one he had when he was a teenager and he knew how angry his father would be when he discovered whatever new fucked up thing Carter had done. It's laughable that it still feels rebellious somehow, but it's the good kind of rebellious where you take some personal facet of yourself and make it ironclad, bulletproof. That's right, Carter likes sucking dick. Anyone who would judge him for that could fucking choke on it.

Sex made Carter feel free, most of the time. It didn't make him feel punctured and flattened the way coming down did. Except the times he'd had to do it, for money or attention or drugs. It hadn't felt so freeing then. 

Dan's fingers thread through Carter's hair, tugging out the tie keeping it pulled back. His touch is soft, considerate. Dan has a way of being very kind that makes Carter ache. He takes Dan into his throat again, again, again. 

Carter swallows because that's what he does and then kisses Dan's stomach until it stops trembling. He begins to count off in his head, _one two three four_ –

"You can't stay," Dan says. His hands retreat.

"I'm already gone," Carter tells him. 

 

 

 

Carter goes to the bar the next Friday hoping for a repeat performance, but he's not so lucky. He plays it casual as he nurses a whiskey, scanning the room until he finds Dan in the far corner chatting up some stacked girl with corkscrew curls. There is a feeling in Carter's stomach like a fist tightening. 

He's not possessive, never has been, so Carter plans to finish his drink and leave. He has no interest in making small talk with the rest of the crew again, or counting out his pennies to pay for drinks. But by the time drink one is done, Carter is still there. By the time he's finished two, he hasn't moved.

He's halfway through Drink #3 when a guy steps up behind the girl, taps her on the shoulder, and is welcomed with a kiss that indicates at least a baseline level of intimacy between them. The guy is obviously her partner, something Dan obviously knew from his unaffected expression. Carter feels dumb. Dan was just talking to someone. 

Carter reaches for his wallet to pay up and beat a hasty retreat when all of a sudden Dan is at his side. He picks up Carter's drink and downs what's left, then kisses Carter deep, tasting of whiskey. "You're cut off," Dan says with a smile, and leaves. 

 

 

 

Carter shows up at Dan's door a week later, blitzed and desperate and stupid. He skipped out on staying with Serena the last three nights and met up with some old, bad friends instead, ignored his sister's calls and felt sorry for himself. Feeling sorry for himself felt sublime. 

Less sublime is Dan standing in the doorway with his fingers at his temples, sighing loudly. "Go home, Carter."

"Don't have one." Carter leans heavily against the frame because that makes the spinning easier to deal with. "This is my last known address, dollface."

Dan raises his eyebrows. "Dollface?"

Carter reaches out to cup Dan's pretty face in both hands. "Mm, my tiny, lovely little man."

"You're fucked up." The statement is flat and resigned, no anger left behind to infect it. "What did you do?"

What hadn't Carter done? Cocaine is his one true love, but there were no limits to the things he would let into his bloodstream. If Carter's body was a temple, then it was always tourist season. 

"Just let me sleep, sweetheart, please," he says. "I'll go before you wake up, even. I won't get in your way at all."

"You've been in my way since the day I met you." Nevertheless, Dan pulls Carter inside and undresses him with kind, impersonal touches. Dan gets Carter into the shower, pets the nape of his neck later when he retches into the toilet. Dan opens a new toothbrush and stands there while Carter brushes his teeth.

Carter hates it and he loves it. He doesn't want to be taken care of at all, let alone by Dan, but hadn't he come here? Hadn't he begged to be let in? Didn't he know that Dan would be good to him because Dan is so good already, that he would put blankets on the couch and smooth his fingers through Carter's wet hair?

"You know," Carter says, folded into the couch like a kid with a cold. "It's all a tool. You know that?" That's what he'd been told time and time again, sitting on couches and spilling his guts. "I fuck people to get them to care about me. To get them invested. And then I push and I push and I take and I take until I just leave these shells behind. Just like me. Succubus, that's what they call them, isn't it? That's me. One manipulative fuck."

"People who say I talk too much never met you." Dan puts a glass of water and a banana on the coffee table, stupid sweet man.

"That's how people like me get people like you to hold our hair when we puke and clean us up and tuck us into bed with a story and a cat." Sylvia is purring contentedly on Carter's feet. "I can't stop. It's the only thing I know how to do."

"Let me get this straight." Dan perches on the lip of the couch, hip against Carter's. "You think the only reason I'm doing this is a mix of sex and manipulation? You lived here, Carter. You and I lived here together, we shared bills, we had a lease, I bought that fucking coconut milk you like even though it was exorbitantly priced and you kissed me every time you walked in the door. You never made me do a single fucking thing I didn't want to do. Not once. You loved me and I loved you right back. Maybe I didn't totally know what I was getting myself into but I knew enough. I never thought you came without strings. I never thought it was going to be easy. But I wanted it. I would have worked for it. You gave up."

He leaves Carter with that. He shuts off the lights and goes into his bedroom, closing the door behind him and leaving the apartment in shadowed silence. Carter makes it maybe twenty minutes before he's up and shuffling into the bedroom, crawling into bed with Dan. Carter lies on top of the covers, but presses his face into Dan's shoulder. 

Dan, still awake, sighs. "Fine," he says. His arm comes up to curl around Carter, fingers slipping into his hair. Carter can breathe again suddenly, tucked against Dan's side.

"I'll get sober," he promises. He's done it before. "But it'll get worse before it gets better."

Dan says, "I'm not sure it ever gets better."

Carter can settle for stretches; never a full year, but he's come close. He likes to bed down for months, sometimes, working nothing jobs and seeing where each day will take him. He did it when he almost married Beth. He did it with Serena, once. He did it with Dan. 

It was easy to settle down with Dan because Dan is that kind of person: solid and true, fully aware of exactly who he is and what he wants. He's the marrying kind, there's no other way to put it. Carter's fuck up instincts were strong but the pull of Dan's orbit was stronger and Carter wanted to give in to it, give up to it, give over. So he went home every night. He cleaned the kitchen and made the bed. He kissed his boyfriend goodbye when he left for work. And then he freaked the fuck out and didn't want to do that anymore.

But he still wants Dan. How's that for fickle?

"There's this thing at my parents' place," Carter says after a long while has passed in silence. "I need to hit them up for some money, but they're – it's a fuckin' ordeal every time I see them, is all I'm saying. I want you to be there."

He's not sure what Dan will say.

"Why?"

"Because," Carter says, careful but honest, "I feel less like I'm spinning out of control when I'm with you."

Dan is quiet, and then he says, "Sure. I can play your plus one one more time."

 

 

 

Carter is already jumpy when they step into the elevator that will take them up to his parents' place, and not just because he ran out of coke and Dan wouldn't let him buy more. He hasn't seen his father in – God. He can't even remember.

Stiff and uncomfortable in a borrowed suit, Carter rolls his shoulders and tugs at his sleeves, unable to settle. "Stop it," Dan says not unkindly, taking Carter by the wrist and then tangling their fingers together. "It's just brunch. We'll eat. I'll drink mimosas and you'll drink coffee. In a few hours it'll be over."

"That's very optimistic, honey." Carter tightens his grip on Dan. "You've never been to the Baizen stronghold."

"I've weathered pretty much the worst the Upper East Side has to offer, so I think I'll be alright," Dan says dryly. 

"That's cute," Carter says. "Very cute." With mounting dread, he watches the numbers light up as the elevator climbs higher. Very fast, he adds, "In the interest of full disclosure, my father is dying."

Dan starts, releasing Carter's hand and staring at him. "What?"

"Cancer," Carter says offhandedly. "Stomach. It's kind of now or never when it comes to scoring a spot in the will." 

"Carter," Dan says, breathless and much too kind, but the doors open before he can finish talking. And then there they are, in the thick of it. 

The maid ushers them into the parlor, where Carter's mother is the first to get to her feet. "Baby doll," she simpers, the sarcasm in her eyes dulled by the martini in her hand. "It's been much too long since I've seen that sweet face – aren't you looking gaunt, darling?" She turns to Dan, long pink nails on the pearls at her throat. "And who is this handsome devil?"

Carter sighs. "Mom, this is Dan, my – well, my boyfriend at one time or another. Boyfriend Dan, this is my mother, Ainsley."

"Oh, call me Goldie, everyone does," she says and – yep, there she goes, swooping in to plant one right on Dan's mouth. Impatiently, Carter wipes the frosted pink lipstick off Dan's face.

"Okay," Dan says, like he's gearing up for this. "Pleasure to meet you, uh, Goldie. Interesting name."

"Do _not_ ask for a story," Caroline interrupts, elbowing in. "She'll be only too happy to tell you."

Dan's laugh is quiet and grateful as he shakes Caroline's hand, then her husband Will's. Carter thinks if Caroline and Will were taken in isolation, it would seem as though he belonged to a very normal family after all. Will laughs at Dan's jokes and Caroline keeps Mom from making an idiot of herself and even little baby Carly coos adorably after she's been deposited in Dan's arms. It's all very charming. But then –

"Where's the old man?" Carter asks, and everyone freezes. 

"Resting, baby, resting," Goldie says. "Would you like something to drink, boys, hm? My martini is unparalleled, Danny, darling."

Carter's nerves are jangling. "It's ten a.m.," he says flatly, as though he hadn't been hoping for a breakfast of cocaine and bourbon. 

"Coffee would be, uh, great, thank you," Dan says. "For both of us."

Goldie immediately snaps her fingers for the maid like she's calling a particularly stubborn dog.

But Carter can't let it go yet. "Does he not want to see me?" 

"Don't be melodramatic, Carter," Caroline says. "He's ill. He needs his rest. He'll be out when we eat."

"I'm not being melodramatic, I thought the whole point of me being here was to see the Judge before he croaks," Carter says.

His mother's response is a breathy shriek that Caroline follows with a softly scolding, " _Carter_." 

Dan reaches over to brush his fingers over the back of Carter's hand and that small touch does soothe him, somehow. "Alright, alright," Carter says. "Tell me all the minutiae about your baby."

Caroline's ensuing monologue is enough to bore everyone to tears except her husband (who is partially responsible for the little monster and therefore has to care) and Dan, apparently. Dan lights up with that kid in his arms, smiling whenever she makes a face, and he's rapt throughout all of Caroline's dull anecdotes. It's enough to pique Carter's interest, but he's not the only one. His half-blitzed mother rouses enough to say, "Do you want children of your own, dear?"

"One day, for sure," Dan says lightly. 

"You might be waiting on this one a long time." Goldie gestures at Carter with her glass and sloshes liquor all down her overpriced silk sleeve in the process. "No one would sign over a baby to _that_."

"Jesus Christ, Mom," Caroline says, but it's not like Carter wouldn't agree. It's not like he hasn't heard worse.

"Oh, come on now, Golden Girl," Carter says, giving his mother a grin. "You gonna get this mean before bacon and eggs? Maybe we oughta sit down; there aren't enough olives in that glass to soak up all the vodka."

"Oh, stop." Goldie gets to her feet unsteadily, but she's all smiles as she leans in to press a kiss to his hairline. "You kids are always picking on me."

Carter and Caroline exchange an exasperated look as their mother begins to weave towards the formal dining room.

Once settled at the table Carter starts tapping his fingers on the arms of his chair, nervous energy intensifying. His gaze jumps to the doorway every time there's a rustle of noise. He should have done a bump before they left the apartment.

Dan leans in close to his ear and murmurs, "Calm down, baby doll," in a decent enough impersonation of Goldie's breathiness that Carter starts laughing. And he's laughing when his father enters the room.

The old man shuffles in with his nurse in tow and eases into his traditional seat at the head of the table, back bowed like something already dead curling in on itself. He's thinner than Carter can ever recall seeing him but he's dressed the way he always dressed on his off days: loafers, pressed trousers, a crisp white shirt. The clothes hang on him now, though. He looks like a man shrunk inside his own skin. He used to be so tall, so imposing, and now he's sunken. Carter Baizen the first. The only thing they ever shared was a name. 

He picks up his napkin and shakes it into his lap before waving a hand for coffee. Nothing would make this man give up his coffee. He looks up, finally, as though only just noticing everyone else at the table. Then he says, "Who's this one?"

Carter's father has a way of looking through people instead of at them, so it takes a minute for everyone to cotton on. "This one's Dan," Carter says. "Dan Humphrey."

"Can he speak?" 

"He can if he's spoken to," Dan says. Carter grins.

Carter's father does not react. He rarely does, even-keeled as a set of empty scales. He only ever smiles once a year for their family portrait at Christmas; unlike Carter, he takes things seriously. They were about as far away in temperament as it was possible for two people to be: an upright, hard-jawed judge with a delinquent for a son. It was its own sitcom. The jokes wrote themselves. 

With no fanfare he starts eating, lip curling slightly at the bland toast and banana he pulls onto his plate. "What do you do, Dan Humphrey?"

"Oh, lovey, don't you remember –" Goldie starts, but Judge Baizen waves her off with an imperious hand.

"I asked him," he says.

"Uh…" Dan looks between husband and wife but barrels on. "I write novels. I've written two. I'm working on a third."

A spasm passes over the judge's face that Carter assumes is unconnected to Dan's chosen profession. "I don't read fiction."

Dan pauses. "Cool," he says.

"Better than my son, at least," Judge Baizen remarks. "What is it you're doing these days, Carter?"

"Men, exclusively," Carter says. "And cocaine, as usual."

Caroline closes her eyes and mouths _oh my god_ but Dad just shakes his head. "It's all a joke to you."

"You've known me for thirty-one years, please don't act surprised by that," Carter tells him. 

Silence reigns uncomfortably until Goldie recovers her socialite manners enough to say, "Baby doll, you didn't tell us how the two of you met."

Carter presses his lips together with amusement, gearing up, but it's Dan who says, "We both went out with the same girl."

"In a manner of speaking," Carter interjects.

"I was in high school," Dan continues. "I thought Carter was really sleazy, to be honest."

"He warmed up to me eventually."

Dan nods. "Eleven years later."

"But he got _real_ warm after that," Carter adds with a wink.

"So what are your idiosyncrasies, Mr. Humphrey?" Once again Judge Baizen doesn't look as he speaks, instead spreading a gossamer-thin pat of butter on his toast and then stirring his coffee. "Forgive me for being blunt, but with Carter we've seen it all. There was the porn star he brought to my retirement party. The addict who stole my wife's jewelry out of our bedroom at Easter. All manner of vagrants we'd come home to after daring to go on vacation, sleeping in our beds and eating out of our kitchen. I'd like to know what to expect from you. Should I keep an eye on my wallet?"

"First of all, _I_ was the addict who stole your wife's jewelry," Carter says. 

"That boy from the adult videos was very polite, as I remember," Goldie offers mildly. She taps a long nail against her empty glass to get the maid's attention.

As far as family meals go, Carter's seen worse; there's no screaming or crying, no broken plates. Carter feels almost at home amongst the barbs and disappointment, sinking into his father's bitterness like a warm bath. But Dan, he realizes, does not share the sentiment. His hands are curled tight in his lap and the line of his mouth is flat. 

"I don't owe you my biography," Dan says. "Nor are the details of my relationship with your son any of your business. I'm sorry you're sick, _sir_ , but that doesn't give you free reign to be rude to a stranger you've invited into your home."

Judge Baizen does lift his eyes to look at Dan then, with the barest hint of humor in his naturally stern face. "Oh, I see," he says. "Carter has truly sunk his claws into this one."

Carter scoffs softly and his lips twist into something like a grin. "Oh yeah, that's me. Said the spider to the fly and all that."

Dan isn't done playing knight in shining armor, however. "Carter might not be perfect but that doesn't make me deluded, either. I know him. A lot better than you do, apparently."

"Yes, that is your line, isn't it," Judge Baizen says. "Eleven years, you said? Just how much of that time were you sitting front row to Carter's lifelong tailspin? I don't remember seeing you during his first overdose. Or his second. The cardiac arrest incident. Going to his hearings, putting my reputation on the line to keep him out of jail. Watching him make a mockery of his name and piss all our money away. Wasting his life. Getting kicked out of school. Sleeping on the streets because he thought he was too good for his family. Showing up any time his bank balance dipped too low. You think he's here now for any other reason? My body's not even cold and my son is already here to reach for my checkbook."

"Money's the only thing you ever gave me," Carter says. "You gonna blame me for wanting it?"

His father does laugh then, a rare sound. "You could at least come up with a more original sob story."

Carter presses his lips together. Any sense of entertainment has dissipated and the room is quiet enough to hear a pin drop, the way it always gets before the worst fights he has with his father. "You wanna talk about being there, huh, Daddy? You act like you showed up wringing your hands every time I skinned my goddamn knee. I remember the first time I woke up in the hospital." He points across the table at Caroline, stock-still like she used to get as a little girl when Carter started shit. "I remember Caroline. You and Mom? Must've got lost looking for the room. I remember _her_ telling me I was going to rehab. Where the fuck were you?"

"Baby," Goldie starts in her nervous little murmur. "You can't –"

"Every time I fucked up – and I'll give you that, I have fucked up a lot – you just wrote a check and sent me away. I don't even know the last time I saw you before today. Five years ago? Six? Where were _you_ when my heart fucking stopped? This isn't about _Dan_. I'm sorry you got a queer cokehead for a kid. But guess what? I could be a stick up my ass Vanderbilt and you'd still find a way to be disappointed in me because you're a shallow, hollow fucking person."

Carter's father levels him with a look so flat it's like watching a wall. Nothing Carter says ever penetrates, so why does he still try?

"You're right, I must be at fault," Judge Baizen finally says, voice even. "Somehow I have produced a self-absorbed, self-destructive man who can't take an ounce of responsibility for any of his actions. How did I manage that?" 

Carter leans in. "I can take you through it step by step, old man."

But Dan is taking Carter by the arm, pulling him back and hauling him up. "You don't need this," he says firmly, and he's just talking to Carter, voice low like no one else is there. "Let's go home."

Carter studies Dan, the righteous anger in his face, and wonders how it is he tricked this man into caring about him this much. "Alright, sweetheart. Let's go."

No one stops them, and Carter does not look back.

In the elevator, Dan says, "I know why you did that. You wanted me to see what they were like. Where you came from. Did you think it'd scare me off?"

"No," Carter says. "The opposite." He wanted Dan to melt. Dan wants to pick up the pieces so badly and Carter's nothing but shards. "How'd it go?"

"It fucking worked," Dan says, and grabs Carter by the shirt to yank him into a kiss. 

 

 

 

Things change after that. Carter cracked something open by trotting Dan in front of his family and the gooey insides are oozing out, unable to be scooped back in. They're wrist-deep in viscera now. 

Carter is still staying with Serena, but now he's walking Dan home after nights at the bar or taking him on little outings. They go to dinner and to the movies. Carter doesn't even put the moves on Dan in the dark half the time. He's very gentlemanly, all handholding and soft kisses, respecting of the boundary that still exists between them. They're not fucking. They're dating. They never really did that before.

In return Dan accompanies Carter to doctor's appointments and NA meetings. He scours Psychology Today for a brand new therapist for Carter. Dan is dedicated to Carter's sobriety in a way that makes his skin crawl but pleases him a little too. Dan has no idea what he's talking about half the time, but he's trying. He really is.

One night when dropping Dan off, Carter backs him up against the front door of the apartment and kisses his neck, saying goodnight like two teenagers with promise rings who are desperate to make the moment last.

"Come on, babe," Carter groans, both because he's not above peer pressure and because he doesn't mind playing his part.

"Can't do it," Dan insists even as he angles his hips against Carter and bites his lip like a tease. "Can't invite you in. Can't fuck you. You're bad news."

"Yeah, that's the point." It makes Dan laugh and Carter grins, steals another kiss. "Come on, come on."

Dan shakes his head but his lips part under Carter's and his hands tighten in the back of Carter's jacket.

"Handjob?" Carter tries, and Dan starts laughing again.

"No, see, I'm being very good." Dan slides his hands down to Carter's ass, oh king of mixed messages. "Not taking bad men to bed at the moment. When you do that it fucks with all those chemicals in your brain. You lose the ability to make informed decisions."

"Then I'm shit out of luck." Carter sighs in a very put-upon way, his mouth a minute from Dan's. "It really is too bad, sweetheart, because you know what I'd do if you did let me in?"

"Oh no," Dan says. "Here it comes."

"First I'd lay you out," Carter tells him, "And then I'd eat you out, and then I'd fuck you."

"Mm, yes. I'm familiar."

"With my fingers," Carter specifies. "I'd get you all worked up. Take you one by one until I was fucking you open on my hand and you were dizzy with it, hard and dripping all over yourself. But you wouldn't come that way."

"No?"

Dan sounds cavalier but he's arching up into Carter now, rubbing against him. "Nope. You'd come on my tongue." He presses his mouth below Dan's ear. "Just that. I know how you like it."

"You have a talent," Dan allows. 

"Then I'd fuck you good, for real. On your back, thighs pushed open. All ready for me. I'd fuck you until you were hard again – baby, remember that night I made you come four times? Every time it caught you by surprise. You were such a mess, you felt so good. Every time you thought that was it, you'd reached your limit, and then I made you come again."

Dan's breathing has noticeably changed by now.

"Maybe we could break the record, hm? But see, on your back I know it wouldn't be enough. You like it so deep. I bet I'm not even big enough for you, but you let me try and make up for it, don't you? I'd let you get on top but I wouldn't let you move. You'd just have to feel me inside you, deep as I could get. Squeezing me. Getting nothing for your trouble."

This time when their lips meet it's not the teasing little kisses they'd been trading before. Now it's deep like Carter had been promising, intense and hot. Kissing with purpose, except Carter knows Dan is still not going to fuck him. He can stick to his guns, that boy.

"I tried with other people," Dan breathes. "It never feels as good with anyone else."

Carter kisses Dan again to shut him up, and to shut himself up, but then he says it anyway. "I love you, sweetheart. I'm bad at it, but all the same, I do."

"I know," Dan says. "That's the fucked up part, isn't it?"

Carter drops his head against Dan's shoulder. He's made so many promises to people in his life – I'll get clean; I won't fuck around; I'll finish school; I'll marry you; I won't tell – but he's never been very good at keeping them. He's addicted to disappointing people. Dan's just the same; loving him doesn't make it any different. It just makes it harder. 

"Moody guy," Dan chides gently. He gives Carter a little nudge. "Come in. But just to sleep."

Carter pulls back to search Dan's face, surprised. "Are you sure that's wise, handsome?"

Dan shrugs and shakes his head. "Your name is still on the lease. It's still yours, too."

That's almost too much to bear. To ruin the moment, Carter quips, "So can I watch you jerk off, at least?"

Dan snorts, shoving Carter back so he can finally turn and get the door open. "Fuck it. Why not?"

Carter drifts into the dim apartment after him, pausing to shut and lock the door while Dan goes on to the bedroom. Carter waits. He's not sure why. He takes his time shrugging off his jacket and kicking off his boots, glancing up every now and then to catch a glimpse of Dan in the open doorway. Deeper shadows have gathered in the bedroom, but there's a soft nighttime illumination coming in through the windows that gilds Dan's skin as he pulls off his shirt, unbuckles his belt. As he lies down. Carter doesn't start to move towards the room until he hears Dan start moaning.

Carter leans against the doorframe to watch, hungry for the sight of Dan but holding back. Taking it in passively: the line of Dan's forearm and bony wrist, the soft dark hair on his body, one leg pulled up and bent. His hand moving over himself, eyes closed and face turned, lip bitten. Those little noises. 

After Dan comes, Carter steps over the threshold to pluck some tissues from the bedside box and clean him up. Carter kisses his still-shivering stomach and then crawls into bed beside him fully dressed, gets close and drapes his arm over Dan. He touches Dan's face, his lovely mouth.

"Could you ever promise that you won't leave again?" Dan asks. It's a simple question, posed without inherent judgment. He just wants to know.

Carter can't. "I can promise to take you with me when I do."

That actually makes Dan smile at him a little, a gut-twisting sight. "Promises, promises."

 

 

 

It's Dan's idea. If it ever comes back to bite Carter in the ass, he will maintain that the decision to get fucked up together was solely on Dan's shoulders.

Carter is crashing at the apartment one night – sexlessly, still – when Dan finds the little vial in his jacket. Carter steels himself for a fight, offering, "Rome wasn't built in a day."

But Dan doesn't look angry, or even resigned. He looks thoughtful. "What if…" He hems and haws, worrying his lower lip. "What if we did it together?" 

Carter lifts his eyebrows.

"I just – I want to _get_ it," Dan says. "I never really did anything like this. Some stuff, sure, but… I want to understand."

Carter reaches out to pull him closer, says softly, "What do you think that means, huh, baby? You think one wild night's gonna make fifteen years' worth of bullshit make sense to you? Click on that light bulb?"

Dan shakes his head, hands settling on Carter's chest. "I'm not an idiot. Or a kid. I know it's not that simple. I just…" His fingers curl a little, dig in.

Carter half-smiles. "You want to make a bad decision with me, Danny?"

"That's all I ever do with you." Dan meets his eyes. "What do you say?"

What else could Carter say? 

He does offer a warning, though. "There's a good chance we're gonna end up doing a lot more than spooning in that bed. Diminished capacity and all that."

"I know," Dan says, his fingertips trailing lightly over Carter's cheek. "I was losing patience anyway." He leans in for a kiss that lingers and when he tries to pull back Carter chases it, reels him in again.

"You're gonna feel like shit after," Carter murmurs, low and hurried. "Empty and wrung out. When the going's good, it's good, but the crash –"

Dan cuts him off with another kiss. "Come on. Let's be bad."

Carter remembers the first time he put his mouth on Dan, cocooned in the pink sheets of Serena's bed with the sun coming in high through the windows. How easily Dan had parted his lips for Carter's fingers. The way he got on his hands and knees, pressed back against Carter like it was something he'd done six hundred times before instead of never, not once. He was nervous then, but he leaned into it and pushed through, gave himself up to it. There's that same glint in Dan's eyes now. The one that says: I know this is wrong, but I want it anyway.

How could Carter resist?

 

 

 

In the bathroom of a club, Carter cups Dan's cheek with one hand and offers up a single serving of white powder with the other. He watches the fireworks go off in Dan's face: the quick intake of breath and flutter of lashes, lips peeling back in a sharp grin. It's almost like feeling it himself – almost. Carter feels a funny little twinge of jealousy. Coke, she's his girl.

"Holy shit," Dan says.

Carter will need twice as much to feel half of what Dan's feeling. "Isn't it something, sweetness?"

"I mean, I wouldn't auction off my trust fund for it, but it is indeed something." Dan winds his arms around Carter's neck and presses a kiss to his mouth that gets too wild too fast, sends them careening into the door of the stall as Dan flings his entire body into Carter. They both start laughing into the kiss but don't quite break it up, coming back in again and again. 

Finally Carter pushes him back, pulls him back in for another kiss, and pushes him away again. "Alright, alright. We're not spending the whole night in here. Let's dance."

Coke turns Dan clingy as anything, not that Carter minds. He likes attention, generally, and Dan's, specifically, so it's no hardship to have a hundred-something pounds of Brooklyn hipster plastered against him. Dan can't stop touching him, fingers threading through Carter's hair and sliding over his neck, touching his chest and his back, sneaking under his shirt. Dan nuzzles Carter like a cat, cheek to cheek, mouth on Carter's neck. They're pressed so tight and so close they feel the vibrations of the music through each other's bodies before they hear it.

"I feel like my bones are rattling," Dan breathes.

Carter holds him tight to keep him still. He does another bump on the dance floor but Dan is paranoid so they head back into the bathroom for him. They make out messily in a stall and jerk each other off too fast, acting like the first two people on earth who have ever had a goddamn orgasm. After that there doesn't seem to be a point in staying so they motor back to the apartment, fused together like magnets. 

More coke. Carter ought to cut Dan off at this point but he's captivated by the too-bright look in his eyes. Carter misses that crystalline high. Now it's all so muddled, never enough until it's too much, each high shorter and shorter but taking more and more. If Dan weren't here than Carter would be supplementing with something else, making dangerous mixes. Searching for that pure burst of feeling that makes it all worth it. Another bump and things really get electric.

Carter can't get hard but that doesn't mean he's not going to try. He begs for it, leaves teeth marks all over Dan's shoulder and bicep while getting fucked open on all five of Dan's fingers. It lasts forever and neither of them tip off the plateau, just end up slick with sweat and panting into each other's mouths. Dan's keyed up, he can't stop kissing Carter and saying messy vulnerable shit like, "I'm afraid you're going to leave. I'm afraid you're going to die."

They're on their sides, face to face, and Carter hooks a leg around Dan to reel him in. He wants Dan inside him with a suddenness that's overwhelming. "I'm not going to –"

"You can't promise that," Dan interrupts. "You can't promise me anything."

Carter shifts and tugs until he tips over onto his back and Dan is on top of him, looking down with those earnest dark eyes. Carter licks at Dan's mouth and lets his legs fall open, wanting. "Would it really make it better if I could?"

Dan pushes up on straight arms and settles his hips, Carter reaching down to line him up. When Dan presses in Carter thinks he might cry, the ache of it is so sweet. "If I could believe you."

"Oh, fuck you," Carter says, laughing. Dan needs so much, so much honesty and affection, and the worst part was that quality he had that made you want to give it to him. "You should find –" The rhythm of Dan's thrusts is all over the place but they're hard enough to jar Carter in the good way, make him breathless. "Someone – someone you can fucking count on." He wets his lips, eyes squeezing shut. "Somebody _nice_."

Dan's forehead is against Carter's, nose brushing nose. "I wouldn't know what to do with that."

"Playing fix-it's your problem, baby." Carter digs his fingers into Dan's sides, pulling him even closer.

Dan's mouth is surprisingly gentle against Carter's. "Then I guess we're perfect for each other, huh?"

 

 

 

The next day they both feel like shit so they stay in bed eating take-out and watching TV with the cat. Dan is quiet and a little clingy, still. He ducks under Carter's arm and relaxes into him, cheek against his shoulder. Carter traces over the marks he left behind on Dan's arm, bites so forceful they bruised a little. 

"Do you feel…" Carter weighs his words. "More informed?"

Dan takes a while to speak, but he doesn't quite answer. "Is that how you feel all the time?" 

Carter pauses, fingers stilling. "How?"

"Brittle," Dan says. "Desperate."

"Fuck, honey," Carter laughs. "Put down the mirror."

Dan smiles a little and kisses Carter's shoulder, then his mouth. "It's terrifying."

"Being a person is terrifying. Some of us have worse coping mechanisms than others."

The sweetness turns somber in Dan's expression. "It scares me," he says honestly. "That you're like this. I thought if I took it head on, it wouldn't, anymore."

The emotional equivalent of setting yourself on fire to get over your fear of being burned. No matter what, you ended up with scorch marks. 

In an attempt at being comforting, Carter says the thing he had not gotten a chance to say last night. "Sweetheart, I am not going to die." 

"You had a heart attack," Dan says. "You're thirty-one. A _heart attack_ by thirty-one is not a good sign. It's a fucking wonder to me you're not dead." 

The first overdose was on pills, back when Carter was still too young and inexperienced to understand the right way to mix and match RXs for maximum effect. The second, years later, came on the heels of his longest sober stretch yet, which had sent his tolerance up in smoke. The cardiac arrest _incident_ was similar: be good for long enough, then pay the ultimate price. The stop-start of sobriety always got Carter into trouble when he dove back in again. God, bodies were frail. 

At least he wasn’t doing speedballs anymore. Really learned his lesson there.

"It wasn't a _heart attack_ , technically, it was just –" Carter can see Dan isn't interested in the difference. "I can stop." He always could. "It's just I can never keep it up."

He doesn't want Dan playing nursemaid either, sweet as it could be in the moment. He has already begun to resent Dan's reminders about meetings and therapy appointments; he knows Dan has already begun to resent the sucking black hole of Carter's mental instability, or at least the idea of constantly working to keep Carter on the straight and narrow. It's too big a job for any one person to do. Except Carter. Especially Carter.

The day goes on like that.

They lie together and let the screen flicker; Sylvia's tail swishes against their fingers when she deigns to make an appearance. They shift, rearrange, and find themselves curled together every time. It feels very tender and raw and uncertain. Dan's hands covered in Carter's blood, metaphorically speaking. 

Sometimes they talk. 

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure thing, handsome." Carter is smoking, another thing he has to quit. He keeps the ashtray balanced on his chest. The fingertips of his other hand scratch against Dan's buzzed head, trace soothing spirals over warm skin and regrowth soft as velvet. "I ask you enough of them."

"What'd you get out of the whole group thing? I mean… Whenever we were with anyone, it just seemed like you wanted to watch me." He looks vaguely uncomfortable in the way Dan always is if attention is focused on him, particularly during sex. It's funny because he wants it so bad – the attention, that is. "It didn't seem like it was for you, really."

"Maybe I just like to watch," Carter says, but that's not really it. "I guess part of it's showing off. Part of it's…seeing what I can get someone else to do." He clears his throat. "Shit. Maybe I am possessive."

"Oh no, really?" Dan's voice is soaked in sarcasm. 

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You like to run the show."

Carter tilts his chin up slightly. He doesn't appreciate the implications of that. "I wanna be your lover, baby, I don't wanna be your boss." A beat later, though he finds himself asking, "Who were you with while I was gone?"

Dan raises an eyebrow. "You want an itemized list? Who were you with? If you can even count that high."

It doesn't sting, though Carter doesn't bother to correct it either. It's a dig at another Carter who doesn't quite exist anymore. "I'm just curious."

Dan reaches over to take the cigarette. He only ever smokes in bed, or when he's drunk. He told Carter once that he was a chainsmoker as an angsty fifteen year old but he dropped it once his mom found out. _Such a good boy_ , Carter had thought at the time.

"Serena," Dan says, which is a foregone conclusion. "Ellis. Some Tinder dates – this guy named Alex, someone named Jay. One night stands. Men I picked up in bars. I didn't count. I didn't see anyone more than twice."

Ellis was a mutual acquaintance, in a manner of speaking – a guy they would hook up with together, like old gal pal Marisol. "You must've missed me."

"Fuck off," Dan says, soft with amusement. 

"Not Blair?"

Dan looks at him for a moment. "She makes everyone I'm with so self-conscious. Which she loves, obviously." He puts the cigarette out and then relocates the ashtray to the bedside table. When Carter doesn't respond, he adds, "Not Blair."

The relief Carter feels is tinged with annoyance. He doesn't want to examine why.

The thing with Blair had been –

Theoretically, it should not have been a problem. It was even Carter's idea. After Marisol got into a relationship that wasn't open enough to allow her to mess around with the two of them, Carter suggested asking Blair if she was interested. She'd ditched her boring boyfriend by then. He'd already been with her and he knew Dan wanted to, could see it in his eyes every time she was in the room. Desperation. Excitement. Want. 

Carter could let Dan have his cake and eat it too. The trouble was, Dan did.

The night Dan floated the idea to Blair, he came home an hour later than expected, loose and happy with his hair all fucked up. He reeked of Chanel No. 5 and tasted like lipstick when Carter kissed him, some kind of parody of infidelity. He said Blair wanted to take him for a test drive. Carter could've put an end to it right then, but he didn't. He pushed forward.

It was the emotional equivalent of setting yourself on fire to get over your fear of being burned.

So they fucked; it was fun. Blair showed up on their doorstep in a trench coat with bone white lingerie underneath, sheer as mist. Carter watched her leave red lipstick on Dan's skin. Carter watched her touch Dan and smile when Dan kissed her and he didn't get jealous because Carter didn't get jealous. He refused to. It wasn't in his DNA.

There was only one thing Carter hadn't budged on. It was stupid, especially since they'd all already fucked each other and Carter had never been one for rules. But he hadn't wanted Dan inside her. That was his line. It was his way of marking his territory, saying Dan was _his_ and not _hers_ even though that wasn't how people worked. Dan's body was not territory to be marked. 

They decided to stop seeing other people after that, but then Carter left town without warning and none of it mattered anymore. 

Dan has been studying Carter too closely ever since he said her name. "Holy shit," he realizes. "You _were_ jealous."

Carter gives him a scalding look. "Fuck off."

"You _were_. You were jealous of me and Blair." Carter turns away but Dan puts a hand on his face to turn him back. "I thought you didn't get jealous, huh?"

Carter scoffs. "We're all adults. We had a nice time. You got princess out of your system, apparently. Why would I be jealous?"

"She's a person, not a phase," Dan tells him. "And my friend."

"Yeah, I fucking know." Carter's irritation is so abrupt and total that it startles him. He can't believe this still bothers him. "You have a _connection_."

Dan's expression is much too amused as he throws a leg over Carter and gets right into his lap. It's an act of appeasement, because he knows Carter likes it, though Dan had never really acclimated to the habit when they weren't fucking. "Please tell me you didn't leave the continent because you thought I was going to leave you for Blair."

Carter sneers. "Are you mad you missed your shot with her mooning over me?"

"You talk a big game, but you really don't know what the fuck you're doing, do you?" Dan sounds fond as he frames Carter's face in his fingers. "Is this the whole thing? You're terrified, so you leave before you're left?" 

It's hard to hold onto toughness under such a tender onslaught. "It's terrifying."

"I know." Dan kisses him, mouth soft and lips parted. "That's how it is. That's just how it is."

Carter slides his arms around Dan and tips them over, pressing Dan into the pillows and leaning over him. "How do you stand it?"

Dan smiles, just a little. "I write." 

Carter brushes his nose against Dan's. "What do those of us without talent do?"

Dan kisses him again, lightly, and his voice is just as whisper-soft in its solemn teasing. "Take it one day at a time." He stretches out the significance of each word.

Carter groans, but it's so obnoxious that there can be no other reaction besides a kiss. And then Dan makes it worse, like he always does.

"I'm here," he says, pulling back enough to look Carter in the eye. "Okay? I'm here."

The prickling under Carter's skin says _run_. But Dan is lodged somewhere between his ribcage and his lungs. There is nowhere Carter can go where that won't be true. 

He and Serena were too much the same: a self-styled Bonnie and Clyde. He'd been mercenary with Beth; he hadn't loved her. Others had held fast and been shaken loose. Most people got sick of him, his charm and good looks worn thin over time because everything about Carter is empty and shallow. He isn't built to last, so he never begrudges anyone cutting him loose. He cannot understand why Dan hasn't.

"Why?" There's too much in Carter's voice, and he hates it. 

Dan's answer comes without a second thought, simple as anything. "We're not done yet."

It isn't what Carter expected. "What?"

"You and me, we're not done yet." Dan shrugs. "Story's not over. I want to get to the end of it, whenever that is. I don't know exactly. But it's a good story. It's one that I like and I want to see where it goes."

Carter stares at him, but he can already feel himself starting to grin. "Fucking writers."

Dan brushes a kiss over his mouth. "Fucking writers," he agrees. Another kiss follows quickly, though this time there's the flick of his tongue against Carter's lips, the scrape of stubble as he presses in closer. Carter responds readily because this is the easy part – this is the part he does best.

He gets on top of Dan, holds himself up but lets his hips drop so he can rub himself slowly against Dan and feel him stiffen. He wants Dan to ask for it, the way he did the first time. Carter likes a lot of vocal confirmation. He wants Dan desperate to have him again even though they're still half-wrecked from the night before, covered in bites and bruises. Even though Carter still feels a twinge when he moves a certain way because of how hard Dan fucked him. 

He lowers himself down as they move together, letting his mouth brush Dan's without quite kissing him. Then Carter presses a soft kiss to the arch of Dan's cheekbone and dips lower still to let his lips linger against Dan's neck. He enjoys the way Dan's grip gets tighter and tighter on his hips until Carter can imagine those slim fingers going white-knuckled. When Carter's teeth find the tendons of Dan's throat, Dan sucks in a breath like he's been burned. That's what Carter wants. He wants Dan to melt and he wants to be the one who lit the match.

Carter whispers sweet things to Dan in a steady stream like he can't keep them in. Endearments and praise that make Dan interrupt his groans with laughing, shake his head and blush from mingled embarrassment and arousal. 

"Quit it," he says at one point, low and almost gruff, but he's smiling. "You have no fuckin' chill."

"Not an iota, my love," Carter promises. "Now tell me what you want."

Dan is forthright and direct, desire plain in his eyes. "You know what. Tongue, fingers, cock. Me on top."

Carter's own words coming back to bite him in the best way. He grins. "Well, alright then, sweetheart. Looks like we've got a schedule to keep to."

Perhaps there was something to their conversation. Carter does like to move Dan around – hand _there_ and leg _there_ , manipulated into prime position for Carter to unravel him. He gets Dan on all fours to eat him out, lips and tongue working until his jaw aches, until Dan is making those helpless little sounds Carter likes so much. Sinks fingers into him. Watches Dan's skin get blotchily flushed and thinks, _I did that. Me_. 

When Carter gets on his back Dan scrambles to straddle his hips, but once seated he doesn't move. It's obvious he wants to, hips making aborted little rolling motions as he tries to fight it, but he just leans back in the cradle of Carter's spread thighs and _struggles_. And then Carter remembers what he'd said to Dan in the hallway outside his apartment, about keeping still. About just having to feel him. 

Hotter in theory than in practice, probably, but Carter keeps his thrusts slow and hard, holding Dan in place as much as he can with hands that are far from gentle. The pace may be glacial but Carter can see Dan's breathing grow shallow, brow furrowed and eyes closed. His hands press flat against Carter's chest, arms taut and muscles tense, body moving in shifty little jumps. Craving more. Waiting for the wave to crest and break, holding on and letting the heat between them keep building. 

Then Dan's hands slide up until his fingertips are curving over Carter's collarbones. He wets his lips and smiles devilishly, eyebrow arching in a silent question. Carter swallows hard and nods. 

Carter would have expected Dan to balk at this little quirk of his, but to his surprise Dan has never even mentioned it. He just does it, does it perfect, his fingers sure but never suffocating as he takes hold of Carter's throat with easy confidence. That's such a big part of it, for Carter. Dan's hands never even trembled. 

When Carter was younger he used to jerk off with his face mashed into his pillow, gasping for breath against the fabric. As he got older it became all about the pressure on his throat, just enough to make breathing difficult but not impossible. He's not sure what it means. He's never brought it up with any of his therapists. 

Now the pressure isn't hard but almost reassuring, the wide curve of Dan's thumb and forefinger slotted against the base of Carter's neck while his hips rock leisurely. Dan's other hand slides up past Carter's head, getting tangled in the bedding as he bends down lower, drapes himself over Carter luxuriously. Carter leans up every time Dan sinks closer until they're forehead to forehead, each of Dan's fingers banded around Carter's throat like a necklace. The angle's not so good now for anything but kissing, which Carter doesn't particularly mind.

Still, it could be better.

Carter snakes an arm around Dan and rolls them over, kisses Dan hard and slides into him again at the same time to make his point. Dan laughs, crooks an arm around Carter in return. "Romantic fucker," he murmurs.

"A blessing and a curse," Carter remarks. 

How many times have they done this in this bed? It's habit to hitch Dan's legs higher around his waist, to tuck his face against Dan's neck. It's so second nature that Carter forgets how long it's been since they fucked like this, sweet and easy, just wanting to be close. Did Carter really give all this up out of panic? Was he genuinely so terrified of Dan's low warm laughter that he had to leave the country? Time feels like a circle, Carter's absence snipped neatly out of the timeline so that he's back at the beginning again, wrapped up in Dan once more.

"I promise," Carter says suddenly. "I won't leave again. Cross my fucking heart."

Dan tilts to kiss the shell of Carter's ear, a smile curving his lips that Carter can feel. "Liar," he says with so much irrepressible fondness that Carter shivers. 

He bites Dan's lip like he needs to throw salt in all that sugar. His hand slides down over Dan's stomach and touches the head of his cock with too-light fingers, rubs that spot on the underside over and over. "C'mon," Carter says, voice teasing. "You know what I like."

Dan half-heartedly rolls his eyes and then goes into the whole production: plays up his own pleasure to theatrical proportions, throaty groans that drag on their way out of his throat. He squeezes his eyes shut and tosses his head back, moans Carter's name over and over; it's a bit, it's a joke, but Carter does kind of like it, anyway. He starts moving again, fucking Dan steady and slow until those ridiculous sounds take on an edge of desperation that Carter knows he isn't faking. That's part of what he likes, maybe. Making it real.

Dan grabs Carter's hair roughly as Carter picks up the pace, wraps a hand around Dan's dick when he feels it twitch between them.

"Carter," Dan breathes, but it's louder the next time, " _Carter_ ," and louder and louder until the downstairs neighbor knocks a broom against the ceiling. Caught off guard, Dan starts and so does Carter, rhythm of his hips stuttering as he buries his grin in Dan's shoulder. 

When Dan comes he's still laughing. Carter always could make him laugh.

 

 

 

"You're late," Blair says.

They're having brunch somewhere much too cutesy for Carter's taste, some restaurant with a French menu and wisteria curling around the whitewashed entryway. Blair looks perfectly appropriate for the venue in that way she has of always being on theme, but next to her Serena is more winsomely draped in a loose linen dress. Across the table Nate and his girlfriend Shauna make a perfectly respectable picture.

In comparison, Carter and Dan look like two people who spent seventy-two hours fucking after coming off a bender. Which is what they are. Carter's shirt is half-buttoned and Dan's t-shirt is inside out but they're so boneless and relaxed that neither could give half a shit if they made a concerted effort to.

"Sue us, Waldorf Esquire," Carter replies. He drops into one of the empty chairs at the end of the table and pulls Dan in with him, arm around Dan's waist. It's not a chair for two, strictly speaking, but Dan doesn't mind the tight fit. He picks up the menu as he leans back into Carter's chest and Carter ignores it, focusing instead on kissing Dan's neck.

Serena lifts an amused eyebrow, smiling slightly. "Things going well, boys?"

Dan is still surveying the menu without looking up. He's got sunglasses on. "We're having a second honeymoon."

Blair snorts. "When was the first one?"

Carter smiles against Dan's skin and murmurs softly in his ear, "Remember that time I fucked you in the bathroom at the –"

Dan clears his throat, suppressing his own smile. "We gonna order or what?"

"I took the liberty," Blair says, because of course she did. "I got you –" She launches into the whole thing, but Carter has already lost interest. He kisses his way up over Dan's jaw until Dan half-turns to meet his mouth in a brief and distracted kiss.

"Cross my heart," Carter says. He reaches up to push Dan's sunglasses up onto his head, but then his hand drops to make an X over Dan's chest.

Dan lets himself smile, with that edge to it that's almost sarcastic even though he hasn't said anything yet. One of his fingers hooks around Carter's, a minor entanglement. "I'll hold you to that."

"I'm hoping," Carter says with an obnoxious wink.

But something intent shadows Dan's expression. "Tell me," like a dare. 

"I'm not going anywhere, sweetheart." Carter lifts a hand to cup Dan's cheek and kisses him again, the rest of the table – the rest of the restaurant, the rest of Manhattan – effectively blotted out for the moment. "Not one damn place without you."

Dan searches his face and presses his own promise into their next kiss, lips shaping words he can't say out loud yet. Carter has faith that they'll get there.

"Are you going to make out the _entire_ time?" Blair huffs.

"Yep," Carter says, and opens his mouth against Dan's, kissing him like it's the only thing he ever wants to do for the rest of his stupid, sorry life. Until their story is over. Until they get another one. Whichever comes first.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at [firstaudrina](http://firstaudrina.tumblr.com/). :)


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